Stranger

[Eli]

Story Title: Stranger

Type of story: Oneshot

Main Characters: Charlie

BTTB rating: A

Genre: Angst

Does story include spoilers: Slight spoilers up to episode 4842

Any warnings: It's pretty dark, but no official warnings except maybe a strange kind of (V/D).

Summary: Being loved is difficult when you don't even like yourself.

Just a little something I finally managed to write down. It's been in my head for a long time, and I've actually had the idea ever since I heard something Charlie said after she rescued Annie from that water pipe thingy a few months ago. Like I said in the warnings, this is pretty dark, even if it doesn't directly refer to anything warning-worthy. I don't think it's much darker than the quote itself, and I believe that aired without any particularly strong warnings. Hope you like it!

Stranger

I open the door to the car, and it smells like new car, and my perfume. Not the disgusting vanilla air freshener smell mixed with old car, that I’d like to overwhelm me. Again it’s just me, alone with the car and the road. I’ve screwed up again, and I know it.

The person I’ve always tried to be, I know her so well, and I could tell you exactly who she is. So why is it so hard being her? It shouldn’t be that hard in theory; just not acting cold and rude, not feeling so threatened by everything, and maybe smile more often.

I back out of the parking lot, and turn left, out on the road south. I don’t feel threatened by the road; I don’t need to put it down and control it. But I’m not smiling either.

Technically it’s not that hard not to sleep with someone; not to kiss the wrong person. You have many moments sober enough to back away; remember that this isn’t the person you want to be, that you're throwing too much away. So why don’t I do that? Probably because screwing up is who I am.

As long as I don’t say it out loud, I can allow myself to judge people. Everyone judges people, don’t they? And actually I judge Joey a little for going out with me in the first place. Now she’s probably laughing, asking herself what on earth she was thinking. And that I don’t blame her for; I’m wondering what on earth she was thinking as well.

Driving by a beach reminds me of how much I used to love running on the beach. There are so many things I used to love, that just don’t seem to matter anymore. Everything seems less important than the one thing that actually matters. I would love to be loved; I desire to be desired.

Then again, it’s not everyone else’s fault I’ve turned myself into someone you can’t love. I don’t expect people to love me anymore, because I know how hard it is to love me. I’ve tried.

There’s a curve just before a steep hill, and a truck driver honks as I almost slide in too far towards the middle of the road. Mechanically, I turn the wheel and avoid an accident. The road is silent and empty again, except me in my blue car. I’m not scared; the truck didn’t scare me. Here I don’t need to prove anything.

If a stranger dies on the road, people think it’s sad, but they don’t really care, because it’s a stranger. I think I feel the same, even if the stranger is me.

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